Mourners gathered outside a Palo Alto funeral home
where music-filled memorial services were held
Saturday for teacher Kristine FitzhughWeekly Photo by Robert Bradshaw

Investigation ends
at Southgate home

Palo
Alto police have shifted the focus of their homicide investigation from
Kristine Fitzhugh's Southgate neighborhood to a county crime lab, where
technicians are analyzing evidence taken from the Fitzhugh home and surrounding
neighborhood.

After one week of searching for a weapon, fingerprints,
fibers or anything else that might point to Fitzhugh's killer, detectives
took down the yellow police tape surrounding the Escobita Avenue home
and turned it back over to the Fitzhugh family. Police would not discuss
what items they had collected or confirm published reports that detectives
were searching for a blunt object as the weapon.

"We're looking,
obviously, for any type of weapon that could have been used to kill Mrs.
Fitzhugh," said Palo Alto police Agent Jim Coffman. "What that is, I can't
say. And whether or not we've found anything, I can't tell you at this
point."

The police have also apparently ended their search of
the Southgate neighborhood, where detectives had been questioning Fitzhugh's
neighbors and looking for evidence.

Coffman said he didn't know
how long the lab analyses would take or how close the department is to
reaching a break in the case. "I can't even hazard a guess," Coffman said.

Fitzhugh's body was discovered by her husband and two of her
colleagues on May 5, at the bottom of the basement stairs. They found
Fitzhugh, a music teacher for the Palo Alto Unified School District, shortly
after she missed a class that Friday afternoon. Police initially attributed
Fitzhugh's death to an accident, but changed that assessment after the
coroner said a fall could not have caused her head-trauma injuries.

Several
hundred people crowded the chapel of Roller, Hapgood & Tinney on Middlefield
Road on Saturday for a music-filled memorial service entitled "Celebrating
the Life of Kristine Fitzhugh." The congregation included Fitzhugh's family,
neighbors, city officials, Palo Alto school employees and members of the
Ravenswood City School District, where Fitzhugh taught until last year.